Any 1200 calorie petite girls?
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OliveSalt
Posts: 47 Member
Im looking for other petite gals that have a daily calorie goal of 1200! Lets support each other in our really tricky quest of getting a nutrient dense intake on such a small margin.
And before you come at me with pitchforks, heres my stats:
36 yr old mama
Height: 5ft 0 inches, petite frame
Current weight: 131
Goal weight: 110
And before you come at me with pitchforks, heres my stats:
36 yr old mama
Height: 5ft 0 inches, petite frame
Current weight: 131
Goal weight: 110
11
Replies
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Hyah! MFP says my goal should be 1200 cals too! I'm not sure if by petite you mean height wise or thinness wise (I'm a bit taller although have a lean petite frame) but feel free to add me if you want! 🙂0
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I’m 5’5” and MFP has me on 1200 calories per day. It is really challenging—especially when you consider it leaves no room for accounting errors. I try to eat more protein and be really mindful of every little thing that I eat because I have no calories to “waste” on something that isn’t going to sustain me for any length of time.5
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I know that my max caloric intake is 1160 unless I get a good bit of exercise. I'm 5'4" with a job that keeps me tied to a keyboard 10-12 hours per day. I bought an apple watch with a subscription to apple fitness which seems to be helping. It's so hard to ever feel like you've eaten enough on 1160 per day!5
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Hello! I also was given a goal of 1200, though I've found it works better for me to keep it to around 1,000. I'm 4'11" and petite as well I'm able to eat a little more if I work out for a couple hours, though It can be challenging to create balanced meals on so little!5
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Girls, have you considered that you've chosen a too aggressive weight loss goal per week? Especially @findingmi Lower that number and you'll get more calories. If it's still 1200 then your goal is still too agressive as 1200 is the smallest number MFP will give you regardless of your goal. Thus be more patient, eat more.24
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How are you managing on 1200 calories?
I've set myself on 1400 calories and even I can admit it isn't doable long term. Give yourselves a break and extend your time frame.10 -
@yirara it's really hard for us short girls to eat more than 1200 and still lose weight.
I'm 5'0" and about 115; if I don't work out every day I have to eat 1200 to see any changes. I guess I could eat more but it would take a very long time to lose any weight. It certainly is a challenge though - I find it easier if I cut out my morning coffee to save those liquid calories.
If you're a petite girl who's made it work on more calories, I'd love to hear your experience!10 -
I'm 5'1.5" and sedentary. At my starting weight (68kg /150lb), MFP showed that my maintenance was 1450 so, even at 1200 cals, I was at the lowest weight loss goal (250 cal deficit) and, as I lost weight, my deficit got smaller and smaller. It wouldn't have mattered what goal I chose, MFP won't set below 1200 cals so my deficit was still 250 cals or less. I was in no particular rush though and it took me just over two years to lose the initial 15kg/33lb and reach my goal weight. I used the time to learn what a balanced me-sized meal / portion was.
Exercise gets me more cals to eat, which was true even as I was losing weight. That's how I had / have a nutritionally balanced diet. I'd have struggled if I'd only been eating 1200 cals a day. My breakfasts vary but are usually 300-500 cals, my lunchtime salad was always bulky but low cal (200-300 cals, including the protein), leaving more for dinner. If I had additional snacks, I spent longer in the gym! I make sure I get a minimum amount of protein across my day, have an upper limit for carbs and pad out my meals with salad / veg so that they seem more filling.
I would strongly advise that you determine what your maintenance cals are so that you know what deficit you're really working to. And know that as long as you eat below that number, you'll be losing something, even if it's slower than you'd like. I also suggest that you note what your weight is today, eat your required cals for 6 weeks (including exercise cals) and calculate the difference / actual rate of loss at the end of that period. Are you losing at the expected rate or are you actually going faster than you should be for the deficit you supposedly have?
In some cases, MFP's numbers are off and in some cases a person's logging is off (either for food consumed or exercise cals burned).
In the last 6-9 months, I've determined that I burn more than MFP thinks I do, therefore my maintenance is higher than MFP thinks it should be. When I was losing weight, I was going to the gym. Although I took my exercise cals from the machines at the gym / logged my weight lifting by time spent lifting, it's possible the machines / MFP were overstating how much I'd truly burned. I always ate 100% of my exercise cals but, because I was slowly losing weight, I assumed everything was correct. If I'd done some proper analysis around my actual rate of loss, I may have realised back then that something wasn't right.8 -
RyotaFujikawa wrote: »Hello! I also was given a goal of 1200, though I've found it works better for me to keep it to around 1,000. I'm 4'11" and petite as well I'm able to eat a little more if I work out for a couple hours, though It can be challenging to create balanced meals on so little!
It can be challenging, indeed!
For context: I'm 48, female, 52 kgs, 154 cms, and a sedentary desk job.
It is true that many women are given a 1200 calorie goal because they choose aggressive loss goals, but that is not always the case when we're petite. According to a commonly referenced calculator, my daily calories to maintain are 1298. Let that sink in.
https://tdeecalculator.net/result.php?s=metric&age=48&g=female&cm=154&kg=52&act=1.2&bf=&f=1
So, if I want to lose the last couple of pounds, I do need to add exercise (and the corresponding extra calories) and/or drag this forever with a daily deficit of only 98 calories, instead of the minimum of 250 that everyone else gets. That's not to say I'm advocating VLCDs or anything of the sorts, at all. I'm just saying that... the struggle is real!6 -
I dont feel limited by 1200 in terms of wanting to eat more. I feel limited in terms of getting a balanced nutrition. I often naturally come in around 1100 so its not like I'm depriving myself to lose weight. I think thats one of the big myths around smaller girls-- my body naturally is asking for 1000 calories, so in order to be healthy and fit I have to be really choosy about how I spend those calories, because a calorie deficit alone is not the model that works for us.8
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I'm not doing 1200 calories. I'm not even doing 1400 calories. Not because I OMG have to eat more but because nutritionally dense food is calorically dense. I like vegetables. I can do a lot of bulk eating for next to no calories. But I am not going to do a great job of hitting protein and fat goals at that, and both of those are necessary for life.
I'm relatively active and not in a rush. I'm going to be eating how I eat to lose the rest of my life.
My calories are set to maintenance, and have been since I got to within a few pounds of my goal. I eat less than that. I lose weight slower but my vitamins get absorbed and I'm not losing muscle.6 -
GummiMundi wrote: »It can be challenging, indeed!
For context: I'm 48, female, 52 kgs, 154 cms, and a sedentary desk job.
It is true that many women are given a 1200 calorie goal because they choose aggressive loss goals, but that is not always the case when we're petite. According to a commonly referenced calculator, my daily calories to maintain are 1298. Let that sink in.
https://tdeecalculator.net/result.php?s=metric&age=48&g=female&cm=154&kg=52&act=1.2&bf=&f=1
So, if I want to lose the last couple of pounds, I do need to add exercise (and the corresponding extra calories) and/or drag this forever with a daily deficit of only 98 calories, instead of the minimum of 250 that everyone else gets. That's not to say I'm advocating VLCDs or anything of the sorts, at all. I'm just saying that... the struggle is real!
That's true; when we're small, we just don't need as much to maintain. It is much harder to create a large deficit when we're small enough that an extremely low calorie diet for some is average for us. I tried that calculator, and it gave me 1,786 calories to maintain, but there's no way I could eat that much.1 -
GummiMundi wrote: »RyotaFujikawa wrote: »Hello! I also was given a goal of 1200, though I've found it works better for me to keep it to around 1,000. I'm 4'11" and petite as well I'm able to eat a little more if I work out for a couple hours, though It can be challenging to create balanced meals on so little!
It can be challenging, indeed!
For context: I'm 48, female, 52 kgs, 154 cms, and a sedentary desk job.
It is true that many women are given a 1200 calorie goal because they choose aggressive loss goals, but that is not always the case when we're petite. According to a commonly referenced calculator, my daily calories to maintain are 1298. Let that sink in.
https://tdeecalculator.net/result.php?s=metric&age=48&g=female&cm=154&kg=52&act=1.2&bf=&f=1
So, if I want to lose the last couple of pounds, I do need to add exercise (and the corresponding extra calories) and/or drag this forever with a daily deficit of only 98 calories, instead of the minimum of 250 that everyone else gets. That's not to say I'm advocating VLCDs or anything of the sorts, at all. I'm just saying that... the struggle is real!
I just put your numbers into another calculator, at it gave you 12something as BMR and 1463 as TDEE. I just tried the same calculator on my stats, and it gave me 1500 calories. That's far too low. Other calculators give me around 1700, which is nearly spot on for totally sedentary days (it's more like 1780 for me). Try other calculators. It's really unlikely that your bmi is below 1000. Not even babies have such a low BMI. But yes, with these stats every weightloss will be slow unfortunately. But this is likely not true for the person I mentioned above, who has a normal size.6 -
I am on 1.200 a day. But eat around 1.000 to 1.1000 most days.
Every day goal: 1000 kcal deficit.
I lose around 2 lbs a months.
The weight comes off super slow now being so small.
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i feel you. I'm the smallest of all of you i think. Maintenance calories at 1253 ,and looking forward to being able to eat that again. Happy at the moment that i can still lose 1kg a month, which will put me at my goal weight in 3 months.Most days are quite easy frankly, except when you really want to eat that 250kcal cookie. It takes careful planning for every single thing you eat.3
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GummiMundi wrote: »RyotaFujikawa wrote: »Hello! I also was given a goal of 1200, though I've found it works better for me to keep it to around 1,000. I'm 4'11" and petite as well I'm able to eat a little more if I work out for a couple hours, though It can be challenging to create balanced meals on so little!
It can be challenging, indeed!
For context: I'm 48, female, 52 kgs, 154 cms, and a sedentary desk job.
It is true that many women are given a 1200 calorie goal because they choose aggressive loss goals, but that is not always the case when we're petite. According to a commonly referenced calculator, my daily calories to maintain are 1298. Let that sink in.
https://tdeecalculator.net/result.php?s=metric&age=48&g=female&cm=154&kg=52&act=1.2&bf=&f=1
So, if I want to lose the last couple of pounds, I do need to add exercise (and the corresponding extra calories) and/or drag this forever with a daily deficit of only 98 calories, instead of the minimum of 250 that everyone else gets. That's not to say I'm advocating VLCDs or anything of the sorts, at all. I'm just saying that... the struggle is real!
I just put your numbers into another calculator, at it gave you 12something as BMR and 1463 as TDEE. I just tried the same calculator on my stats, and it gave me 1500 calories. That's far too low. Other calculators give me around 1700, which is nearly spot on for totally sedentary days (it's more like 1780 for me). Try other calculators. It's really unlikely that your bmi is below 1000. Not even babies have such a low BMI. But yes, with these stats every weightloss will be slow unfortunately. But this is likely not true for the person I mentioned above, who has a normal size.
According to the calculator I linked, my BMR is 1082 (so, not under 1000). I can try other calculators, sure, but there is something else that I need to take into consideration: I started using MFP two and a half years ago (and I have used that calculator for the same time), weighing and logging as correctly as I can, every single day. I went from obese to overweight to normal weight, and my rate of loss has been consistently accurate with the numbers. I'd say 845 days of personal data give me something reliable to work with.
Mind you, I'm not complaining. I know that the better eating habits that I have developed over this time need to be maintained for the rest of my life, unless I want to gain weight again. I know exercise is good for my health and I intend to keep doing it regularly. It is what it is and I just can't expect to go back eating on a surplus like I used to and not suffer the consequences. I'm okay with eating just what I need.6 -
Wow, so happy I stumbled upon this thread. I am 5”4 and have a budget a bit higher, but not by much - 1250. It kills me that if I have two glasses of wine on Friday night, it blows my day and week! My husband (6”3) eats a full on Turkey Sandwich and MFP treats it as a snack!!! Good luck everyone and would love to hear what you are eating.9
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It is nice to see others with the same challenges. I’m 38, 5’0”, usually am pretty active but have recently dealt with a back injury and I maintain around 1450 as well. That’s with 30-40 lbs to lose! I have no room for error with my logging. I’m not trying to lose weight now due to pregnancy but when I was losing weight before, I had to accurately log, never cheat, had no room for treats, and eat around 1200-1300 depending on exercise. The progress was soooo slow.6
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Just something to think about. I am 5" 3 and have 40 lbs to lose. My nutritionist health provider set my goal at 1200 and they only count fat grams which is set at 40. The first time around I lost 22lbs in 12 weeks but now three years later I am dropping 1 lb a week probably less since I am now 74 and my activity level is less due to health problems. Hope you all do well.2
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Glad I found this thread.
I'm 48, 5'2" and 144. I can't get my weight to budge. I've been trying since Jan but I thought I better track really well, weigh food, be consistent in the last few weeks and so far I've lost nothing. :-( I looked back at my MFP to see when I weighed the least and a couple years ago I lost about 2 lbs over 6 weeks but I noticed that I was eating around 1000-1100 max and had cut out so many things.
I'm eating 1200 cal now and not eating back any exercise calories so looking for all the advice I can take. I hate measuring, weighing, and thinking about what I'm eating all the time and seeing no progress. It's depressing.8
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